When a game vanishes off the face of the Earth for over six months after an initial reveal, it’s usually a bad sign. But in the case of Virtual Battlegrounds, an upcoming VR battle royale game from developer Cyberdream, they were just working hard on their game for eight months. A lot has happened in that time.

The last time we covered Virtual Battlegrounds, the idea of a VR battle royale game was still unique. Stand Out existed already, but it was in its infancy and there wasn’t even a peep about Rec Royale or Do or Die VR yet. Now, the VR landscape is very different and it’s going to be tough for the small indie developer to still make a splash with their ambitious take on the genre.

This article will be focused mostly on my own hands-on impressions. If you want to see footage of the game and hear what the developer has to say, you can watch our feature video above.

The Difference Makers

If Cyberdream wants Virtual Battlegrounds to be successful, it has some stiff competition. On the one hand there are all of the existing battle royale games outside of VR that have made significant names for themselves, primarily being PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) and Fortnite, as well as others like Realm Royale and H1Z1. These titles are where the genre got started and where it’s been popularized. Just simply making a VR version of that concept isn’t really enough. People expect more than copy-paste developers.

Then on the other hand we’ve already got a few VR battle royale games on the market. There’s Rec Royale, a game mode in the free-to-play social VR platform, Rec Room, that’s got a ton of players across PSVR, Rift, and Vive, and we’ve got Stand Out: VR Battle Royale, arguably the first VR battle royale game to make a splash. There are others, but those are the main two.

After playing an in-development build of Virtual Battlegrounds while visiting Cyberdreams’ Orlanda, FL studio, clearly the most significant two ways they plan to differentiate themselves are: 1) map size/scope, and 2) physicality of gameplay.

The map itself in Virtual Battlegrounds is a massive 4km x 4km playspace with several landmarks, cities, villages, and a variety of terrain features and elevation. For those paying attention, that’s actually the same size as PUBG’s third, smaller map. But in VR, it feels enormous.

Standing on the loading ramp at the back of the helicopter as it flies over the map the sheer sense of scale really sets in. In a game of Stand Out or Rec Royale you can easily get to pretty much any corner of the map when you jump out no problem, but depending on your spawn point, you may not see entire sections of Virtual Battlegrounds for a while. The map is just simply huge.

Right now they’ve got the game optimized for 24 players at a time, with some bots, but are aiming to up that number to about 32 players at a time

Strap into your cockpit and buckle up: the first Open Tournament for Archangel: Hellfire is officially underway. As of July 31st and through tomorrow, August 3rd, pre-qualification matches are happening for Archangel: Hellfire online.

All you have to do to qualify for the actual tournament this weekend (8/4 – 8/5) is be really good at the game, basically. The top 16 players (based on their win/loss ratio and kill-death-assist ratio) will be selected for official tournament matches. All matches will be single elimination style 2v2 team deathmatch, which is the game’s core PvP game mode. The rules also specify “anyone may be your wingman, excluding players already qualified for this Tournament.”

Winning teams of this and all other Open Tournaments will receive $500 cash, a Bomber Jacket, and a Mech Trophy.

Each of the next three weekends will have Open Tournaments like this one (8/4 – 8/5, 8/11-8/12, and 8/16-8/17) that you can enter in to play. Entry is free, you just need to qualify, and the PvP portion of the game itself is free to download and play (Oculus or Steam) for a chance at the prizes.

Then once those three tournaments are in the books, there will be a Mech Ascent Championship final tournament for the top 4 performers from each tournament. In this round the winning team will receive $2,000 cash, 2 Bomber Jackets, and a Mech Trophy.

For more details you can visit the tournament info page here, find the game on Steam and Oculus Home, and read our full review for more details. Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

One of the biggest bottlenecks to the lack of large VR worlds is how difficult, tedious, and time-consuming it is to create VR content. Social VR platforms like VRChat, Rec Room, and High Fidelity have done a great job of democratizing the process quite a lot and technically you can play things like Roblox and Minecraft in VR, but it’s not quite the same as a bespoke VR world crafted with VR in mind from the start. That’s where Sinespace is trying to make some progress.

Sinespace is a social VR world, similar to Second Life, that has native, robust VR support already even in its early beta form. The platform is up and running, users are selling products, making money, and living out digital lives both in VR and on PCs around the world. And now creating things inside that platform, without even leaving VR, has become easier than ever through the power of Archimatix.

Archimatix is a node-based modeling extension for Unity that enables “full parametric modeling and dynamic, multi-user creation” that’s incredibly intuitive and easy. I recently checked out a real-time live demo of Archimatix in action, while wearing a VR headset inside of Sinespace, and was surprised by the results. Within minutes we were scaling a large palace into different shapes, sizes, and designs.

What’s notable about Archimatix is that it doesn’t just stretch or extend a texture to fit your specifications, it’s actually dynamic. So for example you could drag the node on a chair horizontally and the model would adapt to the new size, replicate textures and designs, and make it look nice in real-time. Suddenly, you’ve got a digital piece of furniture that looks like it was always supposed to be a bench and isn’t just a stretched-out chair.

Everything from terrain, to structures, to entire zones that people visit can be adapted while you’re inside your headset and with other people around helping out. It feels a bit like you’re all a bunch of all-powerful Gods shifting and shaping the world at your will.

If you want to try it out, new users need to create a free Sinespace account and then download and install the Creator Preview release version of the game here. Once you launch Sinespace, click Home and go to your free private space to start tinkering. You can find some free starter items in the Shop as well.

What do you think of this news? Let us know down in the comments below and check out the Sinespace Discord channel for more on the growing community.

A few weeks before the launch of the hugely-anticipated Firewall: Zero Hour, developer Adam Orth has left the studio that made it.

Over on Twitter, Orth revealed that yesterday was his last day at First Contact Entertainment. “Finishing my work on FZH left me some time to reflect and realize there are some new things I want and need to explore,” he wrote.

Some personal news: today was my last day @firstcontactent. Finishing my work on FZH left me some time to reflect and realize there are some new things I want and need to explore. I’m off on a new adventure and will update more on that soon-ish.

— Adam Orth (@adam_orth) August 2, 2018

There’s no reason to worry about the state of Firewall itself; the game went gold not long ago and will be launching exclusively on PSVR on August 28th. It’s a tactical multiplayer shooter that pits players in 4 v 4 battles, and we’re very much looking forward to it.

Still, Orth’s departure is somewhat surprising given the proximity to Firewall’s launch and the fact that he joined First Contact just 18 months ago. He made the move to the LA-based team after finishing up work on his first VR game, Adrift, which launched alongside the Oculus Rift. Developer Three One Zero was shuttered at the same time.

As for what’s next, Orth promised an update “soon-ish”, though his profile now notes that he’s “Mostly likely in VR”. Replying to one fan that hoped the developer would remain in VR, he wrote: “You know it, buddy. Always! Keep on supporting the game. Lots still to come!”

Zero Caliber is one of the most promising VR shooters on the horizon. After we were mostly let down by Seeking Dawn recently and Firewall: Zero Hour only coming to PSVR, we set our sights on X-Real’s upcoming mixture of intense action and military realism to scratch that new shooter itch.

In Zero Caliber the developers have really gotten quite ambitious. Their previous game, A-Tech Cybernetic, which is still in development, caught us by surprise with its surprising polish, so we hope that attention to detail can carry over into Zero Caliber. This game is billed as a full-on VR shooter with a deeper than average campaign that’s fully playable in co-op. A bit like a modern military take on Farpoint with full campaign co-op multiplayer support.

Here’s some fresh gameplay footage:

Also this week the developers revealed on Steam that they’re currently taking sign ups for Alpha testers. It’s tentatively slated for August 10th and you can sign up right here on Discord. After that testing phase, a free, public demo for Zero Caliber will be released presumably on the game’s Steam page.

We’re excited about this one, but for now we’ll remain just cautiously optimistic. The action in the trailer looks great, but it remains to be seen just how much of that happens during actual gameplay. If you’re curious as well, head over to the Discord and throw your name into the Alpha tester hat.

Let us know what you think of the game so far down in the comments below!